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I'd just build a frame for the top bar. Use a 1/2" dowel for the sides and a 1/4" dowel for the bottom. Drill a 1/2" hole in the top bar 3/8" in from the side (in other words so there is a 3/8" space between the bar and the side) at the same angle as the side (you can eyeball it). Then cut the dowels so that they stop about 3/8" from the bottom of the hive. Then drill a quarter inch hole in each side dowel and cut a 1/4" dowel to fit across the bottom. Glue it all together with a few small nails and you have a frame that you can tie the comb in.

You could reduce the size of your current hive to as small as possible, making a box to hold how ever many frames of brood you have and no more than that. Super the TBH with this brood box right above where you want the brood nest of teh tbh to be. Wait until the queen has moved down into the TBH and laid a cycle or two of brood, the super will have a good chance of being converted to honey storage duty by the bees, at which time you can remove it and feed the unfinished honey back to the bees.

This will provide you with a way of transfering the colony with zero destruction to either hive. It will require you to give a way to super the hive though, whether that be some topbar with communication notches or something.

My other top bar hive is a medium Langstroth. It's in a 5 frame nuc right now and will be moved into an 8 frame then a 10 frame then a 33 frame box. You could put standard frames in it. I'll see how the comb holds up before I do more of them that way.

thanks for the advice but after weighing all the options, I think its simpler to just bootstrap my system by hiving a swarm and let the bees sort themselves out

Plus, it's going to rain all next week(gah!), so, finding a warm day is going to be hard(its probably doable, but chances are that after all has been done, the brood will be chilled and dead), and then I've to wait for the queen to hatch and get mated successfully and hope they'll not get robbed whilst they are that little with all that food inside. I'll be worrying too much I think! (yes, I know, relax, have a homebrew, but I know I'll have the homebrew AND fuss over things, and looking in there every 5 minutes isn't an option...-- its hard to be a newbie!)

The hive is sitting empty in an apiary with 30 other hives, so, if there is a swarm issuing, I've a good chance of them moving in voluntarily(or I get given one thats been caught) and they'll be all wired to set up house without me bumbling in their way.

Cinnamon

Ps.: I should have really added that I've a one-functional-arm-and-its-my-left limitation here. So, fancy woodwork and lifting supers (which I don't posess is a bit out of my reach (pun intended, heh

I do not know the size of your hive but this is what I have started. I made a couple of flat tbs the length of a standard lang frame. I used 3 sheetrock screws to hold my TB to this bar. I was waiting on some cash for wood filler to fill the saw kerf where it goes on the sides of the tbh to fill the kerf with wax. My plan from here is to place these bars into my langs for drawing out some comb. My TBH is slope sided. I may have to trim some of the comb off to make it fit properly but think I will get them moved before they get that drawn out.

You can tie combs to top bars by using some sort of support on the bottom of the combs so that the wire/string doesn't cut through the comb. Sturdy leaves, wooden shims, or anything rigid enough to keep the string/wire from pulling through will work just fine. You could also cage the comb, making cages out of #8 hardware cloth that holds the comb under the top bar. Then when the bees have finished moving in, you can remove these old feral combs.